A year in Darjeeling.
It was just after the great earthquake in Assam, India, that I arrived
in Darjeeling, and, as I could see from a large number of entirely
collapsed and partly destroyed houses, this latter place also had had
its share of the seismic disturbances. As for the Saraṭ Villa, it too
had suffered more or less, and repair was already in progress. For all
that, I was received there with a whole-hearted welcome. An evening’s
talk was sufficient, however, to make my intentions clear to my kind
host, and, as my time was precious, Rai Saraṭ took me out, the very
next day after my arrival, to a temple called Ghoompahl, where I
was introduced to an aged Mongolian priest, who lived there and was
renowned for his scholarly attainments and also as a teacher of the
Tibetan language. The priest was then seventy-eight years of age, and
his name, which was Serab Gyamtso (Ocean of Knowledge), happened by a
curious coincidence to mean in the Tibetan tongue the same thing as
my own name Ekai meant. This discovery, at our first meeting, greatly
pleased my Tibetan tutor, as the old priest was thenceforth to be. Our
talk naturally devolved upon Buḍḍhism, but the conversation proved
to be a rather awkward affair, for though Rai Saraṭ kindly acted the
part of an interpreter for us, it had to be carried on, on my part,
in very rudimentary English. As it was, the first day of my tutelage
ended in my making the acquaintance of the Tibetan alphabet, and from
that time onward, I became a regular attendant at the temple, daily
walking three miles from and back to the Saraṭ mansion. One day, about
a month after this, Rai Saraṭ had me in his room and spoke to me thus:
“Well, Mr. Kawaguchi, I would advise you to give up your intention
of going to Tibet. It is a very risky undertaking, which it would be
worth risking if there were any chance of accomplishing it; but chances
are almost entirely against you. You can acquire all the knowledge of
the Tibetan language you want, here, and you can go back to Japan,
where you will be respected as a Tibetan scholar.” I told my host that
my purpose was not only to learn the Tibetan language, but that it
was to complete my studies in Buḍḍhism. “That may be,” said my host,
“and a very important thing it no doubt is with you; but what is the
use of attempting a thing when there is no hope of accomplishing it?
If you go into Tibet, the only thing you can count upon is that you
will be killed!” I retorted: “Have you not been there yourself? I do
not see why I cannot do the same thing.” Rai Saraṭ’s rejoinder was:
“Ah! That is just where you are mistaken; you must know that the times
are different, Mr. Kawaguchi. The ‘closed door’ policy is in full
operation, and is being carried out with the most jealous strictness in
Tibet to-day, and I know that I will never be able again to undertake
another trip into that country. Besides, when I made my trip, I had
with me an excellent pass, which I was fortunate to secure through
certain means, but there is no means, nor even hope, any longer of
procuring such a pass. Under the circumstances I should think it is
to your own interest to go home from here, after you have completed
the study of the Tibetan language.” I knew that my good host meant
all that he said; but I could not allow myself to be prevailed upon.
Instead, I utilised the occasion in telling him that further tutelage
under Lama Serab was not to my mind, because the aged priest was more
anxious to teach me the Tibetan Buḍḍhism than the Tibetan language.
I asked Rai Saraṭ to kindly devise for me some way, by which I might
acquire the vernacular Tibetan language. Finding me resolute in my
purpose, Rai Saraṭ, with his unswerving kindness, cheerfully agreed
to my request, and arranged for me that I should have a new private
teacher, besides a regular schooling. It was in this way. Just below
Rai Saraṭ’s mansion was a residence which consisted of two small but
pretty buildings. The residence belonged to a Lama called Shabdung, who
just then happened not to live there, but in a house in the business
quarters of Darjeeling. Rai Saraṭ sent for this Lama and asked him to
teach the “Japan Lama” the Tibetan language, the Lama returning to his
residence just mentioned with his entire household. Lama Shabdung was
only too pleased to do as was requested, and I was forthwith installed
a member of his household, that I might have ample opportunity of
learning the popular Tibetan language. On the other hand, I at the
same time matriculated into the Government School of Darjeeling, and
was there given systematic lessons in the same language by Prof. Tumi
Onden, the Head Teacher of the language department of Tibetans in that
School. I should not forget to mention here that, while I paid out of
my own pocket all the tuition fees and school expenses, as it was quite
proper that I should, I was made a beneficiary of my friend Rai Saraṭ
so far as my board was concerned, that good man insisting that to do
a little kindness in favor of such a “pure and noble-hearted man as
you are”--as he said--was to increase his own happiness. Not too well
stocked with the wherewithal as I was, I gratefully allowed myself to
be prevailed upon to accept his generosity. Indeed, I had only three
hundred yen with me when I arrived at Darjeeling; but, as it was, that
amount supported me for the seventeen months of my stay there. Had I
had to pay my own board, I would have had to cut down my stay there to
half the length of time.
At Lama Shabdung’s I lived as though back in my boyhood, attending the
school in the morning, and doing my lessons at home in the company of
the children of the family in the afternoon. It is a well known thing
that the best way to learn a foreign language is to live among the
people who speak it, but a discovery--as it was to me--that I made
while at Shabdung’s was that the best teachers of everyday language
are children. As a foreigner you ask them to teach you their language;
and you find that, led on by their instinctive curiosity and kindness,
not unmingled with a sense of pride, they are always the most anxious
and untiring teachers, and also that in their innocence they are
the most exacting and intolerant teachers, as they will brook no
mis-pronunciation or mis-accent, even the slightest errors. Next to
children, women are, I think, the best language teachers. At least such
are the conclusions I arrived at from the experiences of my ‘schooling
days’ in Darjeeling. For in six or seven months after my instalment
in the Shabdung household, I had become able to carry on all ordinary
conversation in the Tibetan tongue, with more ease than in my English
of two years’ hard learning, and I regard Tibetan as a more difficult
language than English. True, I made myself a most willing and zealous
pupil all through the tutelage; withal, I consider the progress I made
in that short space of time as quite remarkable, and that progress was
the gift of my female and juvenile teachers in the Shabdung family.
The more progress I made in my linguistic acquirement, the more eager
student I became in things Tibetan, and I found in my host a truly
charming conversationalist, himself fond of talking. Evening after
evening I sat, an absorbed listener to Lama Shabdung’s flowing and
inexhaustible store of narratives about Tibet.